Please help, my 600X died!

[hobbes]

I have a Thinkpad 600X, model 2645-5FU. A couple of days ago it crashed and now I can't get it working. Upon powering up, I get the graphic of the floppy drive with the arrow telling me to put in a floppy and press F1, but doing so only gets me an error code of I9990305.

For some reason, it can't see the hard drive or the floppy. The floppy shows no activity on the LED when it is inserted and I try to boot. However, it does recognize the CD drive if I put it in, and I can boot to a bootable CD. After booting to a CD, it doesn't see the hard drive either. Both the hard drive and the floppy worked fine before the crash, and connecting the hard drive to my desktop PC shows that it is not corrupted and functioning fine.

Any ideas what might have happened and how to fix it? Do I need a new motherboard? If so, will any 600 series motherboard work or do I need the specific model for the 600X? Any other suggestions?

Thanks,
Mark

[whizkid]

Get your Hardware Maintenance Manual (see the FAQs on this forum for how to download it from IBM). Go through the checkout procedures.

*IF* you need a new system board, make sure you get the part number from that manual. The 600X has two different system boards: one for SpeedStep CPU's and one without. You have SpeedStep, and your part number is 08K3110, but double check that yourself. Do not get a system board for the 600 or 600E.

If you're keen on keeping your machine going (I have a 5FU myself), you can also upgrade the CPU to 850MHz. Get an MMC-2 module with a PIII CPU and you're all set. The 850MHz parts are rare and pricey, but 800MHz is more common and reasonable.

I9990305 means "No bootable device." Yikes. You should download and run PC Doctor. Get it at IBM's site. Run all the tests and see what's up.

[hobbes]

Get your Hardware Maintenance Manual (see the FAQs on this forum for how to download it from IBM). Go through the checkout procedures.

Thanks for the reply. I had already tracked down the manual as well as the maintenance diskette. However, the manual says to select "Test" from the Easy-Setup menu. I do not have that option on my menu. Any reason why I wouldn't have that option? And are there any instructions for how to use the maintenance disk?

*IF* you need a new system board, make sure you get the part number from that manual. The 600X has two different system boards: one for SpeedStep CPU's and one without. You have SpeedStep, and your part number is 08K3110, but double check that yourself. Do not get a system board for the 600 or 600E.

If you're keen on keeping your machine going (I have a 5FU myself), you can also upgrade the CPU to 850MHz. Get an MMC-2 module with a PIII CPU and you're all set. The 850MHz parts are rare and pricey, but 800MHz is more common and reasonable.

Any suggestions on the best place to get a new board or module? I had already pulled that part number from the manual (and it matches what you wrote). I looked on ebay for the motherboard and can't find any for a 600X (hence my question about alternate boards). I would like to keep my machine going, but I would rather not spend a lot of dough to buy a motherboard that might not even solve the problem.

I9990305 means "No bootable device." Yikes. You should download and run PC Doctor. Get it at IBM's site. Run all the tests and see what's up.

Thanks. Yikes was my response as well. I'll give that a try.

-Mark

[whizkid]

I had already tracked down the manual as well as the maintenance diskette. However, the manual says to select "Test" from the Easy-Setup menu. I do not have that option on my menu. Any reason why I wouldn't have that option? And are there any instructions for how to use the maintenance disk?

You are not using the right part of the manual. The 600 and 600E have Test selections. The 600X does not. Go to the IBM site and get PC Doctor for the 600X. Use that to test your hardware. The maintenance disk can be used to set your system serial number on the system board.

Any suggestions on the best place to get a new board or module? I had already pulled that part number from the manual (and it matches what you wrote). I looked on ebay for the motherboard and can't find any for a 600X

eBay or a local laptop repair shop. You can also look for a 600X with a broken screen, or just the bottom half of a machine, or one that's broken. Check the model of any machine at IBM's site to be sure it has the SpeedStep motherboard.

[hobbes]

You are not using the right part of the manual. The 600 and 600E have Test selections. The 600X does not. Go to the IBM site and get PC Doctor for the 600X. Use that to test your hardware. The maintenance disk can be used to set your system serial number on the system board.

Oops...right you are. I was looking at the manual for the 600 and 600E, but not the 600X. I've tracked down the correct one now.

As for PC Doctor, I have not been able to successfully port it to a CD. Since my computer won't recognize the floppy drive, I have to boot from a CD. I've successfully converted other bootable floppies to CD-Rs, but for some reason the same process with the PC Doctor diskette results in a CD from which the laptop won't boot. Is it possible to run the PC Doctor diagnostics from the CD after booting from another CD? This would be so much easier if it hadn't stopped recognizing the floppy drive.

eBay or a local laptop repair shop. You can also look for a 600X with a broken screen, or just the bottom half of a machine, or one that's broken. Check the model of any machine at IBM's site to be sure it has the SpeedStep motherboard.

My unit is a 650 MHz. Does a replacement need to have the same CPU or can I just transfer mine to any 600X speedstep board?

Thanks for all of the help.

[whizkid]

IIRC, PC Doctor is just a DOS program, so any old DOS bootable CD with a CD-ROM driver should let you run the program.

You can use your CPU on any 600X system board. It will run at 500MHz on the non-SpeedStep boards and the full 650 on the SpeedStep boards. I think I just read (from Bruce M.) that boards are going for about $60 on eBay.

My 600X will not use (most of) a floppy disk if the drive is in the internal bay. If I put the floppy drive in the external bay, it works fine. You might try switching yours, or you can pick up the floppy drive for about $5 and the bay for another $3 or so... again from eBay. I just leave my floppy connected to the SelectaDock 600 and pop the machine in there when I need it, which is rare.

[hobbes]

IIRC, PC Doctor is just a DOS program, so any old DOS bootable CD with a CD-ROM driver should let you run the program.

I tried that, but unfortunately it appears that it needs to unpack it's diagnostics to the floppy to run, so it has problems running from a CD since it can't write to the drive.

You can use your CPU on any 600X system board. It will run at 500MHz on the non-SpeedStep boards and the full 650 on the SpeedStep boards. I think I just read (from Bruce M.) that boards are going for about $60 on eBay.

Thanks for the info. Naturally there are no 600X boards on eBay right now (Doh!). And the lowest price I found on the net was $240. For $60 bucks I might buy one just to see if that fixes it, but not for $240.

My 600X will not use (most of) a floppy disk if the drive is in the internal bay. If I put the floppy drive in the external bay, it works fine. You might try switching yours, or you can pick up the floppy drive for about $5 and the bay for another $3 or so... again from eBay. I just leave my floppy connected to the SelectaDock 600 and pop the machine in there when I need it, which is rare.

I tried my floppy both in the laptop and the external bay, neither works. The machine just won't see that floppy drive. I thought about buying another floppy drive, but my gut feeling is that it is not broken. Both the floppy and hard drive were working right before the crash. Since both stopped being recognized and I have verified that the hard drive is fine, it seems to me that the floppy is fine also. It has to be a problem with the laptop itself (doesn't it?).

I'd love to run the PC Doctor diagnostics to check, but can't figure out a way to get them to run. I'd hate to have to take this thing into a repair shop. In 20 years I've never had a computer problem I couldn't get fixed myself (often with a bit of research and helpful advice from the net ). It is hard to admit I have finally run into a stumper.

-Mark